MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. THE WESLEYAN METHODIST. (No. LXXXI.) CORNISH METHODISM. To the Editor of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine. SINCE the visit which I had the honour to pay to the Cornwall District, as a member of a Deputation from the Wesleyan Missionary Society last spring, Cornish Methodism has frequently been a subject of inquiry on the part of intelligent friends in various directions. The isolated situation of that favoured part of our Connexion, and the important influence which its Methodism exerts, are circumstances calculated to awaken curiosity. A casual visitant, however, is little likely to acquire the means of affording either very correct or satisfactory information. He takes up general impressions, which fuller inquiry might correct or modify. The only advantage he can pretend to is, that his observations, so far as they may be just, may possibly be impartial. I have, notwithstanding, ventured to put together a few particulars relating chiefly to the geographical extent and more prominent features of this part of our work, as they struck me during that visit; hoping that they may not be entirely without interest amongst a large class of readers to whom Cornwall must long remain unknown, except through the medium of such communications. Cornwall is far from possessing any striking features of external beauty. You leave the valley of the Exe, embedded in the softness of its own undulating loveliness, cross the northern part of Dartmoor, by rugged and often precipitous roads, and arrive at Launceston, the first town immediately within the limits of the county, the majestic ruins of whose lofty castle look wildly upon the dreariness around it. Eighteen miles farther you travel over an open and desolate country, leaving to the right the little disfranchised borough of Camelford, when you reach Bodmin, the county town, consisting of a single long street. Proceeding forward, we leave on the left St. Austell, and a large mining district: but little as there may be in this part of the county to fascinate in scenery, a Methodist Preacher cannot travel over it, without recollecting that it gave to the cause with which he is identified, two of its most eminent and elegant Ministers, the Rev. John Stephens, and the late Rev. Thomas Roberts, A. M. Approaching Truro, the country becomes somewhat more picturesque; trees, not numerous any where, beautifully occupying the lower grounds. The town is small, but surpassed in neatness by none in the county, except Penzance. Leaving at this point the Falmouth road, and turning more directly to the west, in nine miles we come to Redruth. On the right, at some distance, is St. Agnes; and on the left, within about three miles, Gwennap, celebrated for its pit, or natural amphitheatre, where, by a large calculation, twenty thousand people are said to have been on different occasions assembled for worship; but the scene around it is bleak, and the whole surface of the earth seems to have been ploughed up as if by the thunderbolts of heaven. Here is a chapel, inferior in size to few in Cornwall, with a good Preacher's house adjoining it; and in miserable contrast with it, an abortion of secession, produced by the erroneous teaching of a Preacher, happily no longer with us. Redruth is a mere Yorkshire village, and as scattered and irregular. At the entrance stands the largest chapel in the county, indeed one of the most spacious in the Connexion; but remarkably plain in its architecture, nearly the whole of the lower part of which, as is the case in most places in the county, is reserved for the poor. A short distance conducts us through Tucking-Mill, scarcely less Methodistically remark able; and a few miles farther is Camborne, a village chiefly composed of recently-erected cottages, where each miner seems laudably ambitious to fix himself "a local habitation," and thus to preserve and exhibit the fruits of his early industry. Here is a chapel, little inferior in size to that at Redruth, but much more tasteful; and connected with it two neat and retired houses for the Preachers, forming, with its Sunday-schools, a beautiful establishment. At a church in this neighbourhood is said to be preserved one of the parish books in which occurs an item to the following effeet: Paid nine shillings for driving the Methodists out of the parish," at present their stronghold; and a part of the county distinguished by some of the most remarkable revivals which Methodism has participated. And yet beyond the precincts of these villages, a stranger fruitlessly looks for indications of population. You hear little of the din of business; you notice no great bustle; you see no smoke; to the unpractised eye of the traveller the comparatively bare country around offers no object except here and there a steam-engine, and a few scattered cottages, to indicate that you are in one of the most populous districts of the county. After skirting Mount's-bay, we arrive at Penzance, the most delightfully situated place in Cornwall. Here is a beautiful chapel, inferior in size to some we have passed, but displaying far greater taste; and in the western part of the town, a small auxiliary one. A mile or two along the bay stands a third, of larger dimensions; and around the western angle of the bay, is Mousehole, where another risea,—a small fishing hamlet, which has produced some of the finest specimens of the influence of Methodism in the county. One of these, a channel-pilot, was well known to all the principal officers in His Majesty's navy; and no sooner did he step to the helm, than the order was instantly issued, "Now, gentlemen, I am in charge, no swearing." The death of this venerable seaman was a fine comment upon his life. To the bystanders, using one of his own technical phrases, he said, "I am going in under bare poles." Turning the promontory at the Land's End, we come to St. Just, a neighbourhood entirely permeated by Methodism; and at the western point of St. Ives-bay, drop down into the small fishing-town that gives name to that important inlet of the Bristol Channel. An immense indescribable structure, galleried on its four sides, and supported by central pillars, here offers accommodation to about fifteen hundred hearers. In this place is shown the room where Mr. Wesley and John Nelson slept on the floor,-the one with his saddle-bags, the other with Burkitt's Notes, for his pillow; Mr. Downs, ill of a fever, occupying the only small bed it contained. By a new road, skirting the bay, and commanding the finest marine prospect in the county, we reach Hayle. This, and the copper-house near it, deriving its name from the smelting of ore, together form a straggling village; yet a chapel, built of large square flags, composed of the scoria of fused metals, is attended by about a thousand hearers. And now crossing the line of our former track from Camborne to Penzance, toward the opposite coast, and passing over an uninviting part of the country, where Mr. Wesley and John Nelson "lived on blackberries," we reach Helston, an insulated pretty markettown, where we have a plain, neat place of worship, of moderate dimensions. In the same direction we arrive at Penryn, and run down a sweet valley to Falmouth; at both of which places are large and convenient chapels. Returning to Truro, we find Methodism less alone than in most of the Cornish towns; but its establishment for worship and schools is no way inferior to any thing that has fallen in our track. St. Austell lies near the southern coast of Cornwall, on the road to Devonport; a small irregular-built town, but deriving considerable notoriety from having been the place of the early residence of Mr. Samuel Drew. Here also we have a very large chapel, occupying the finest site of any chapel in the county; one only of numerous places of worship which Methodism possesses in this populous and interesting neighbourhood. Such are the chief positions occupied in the District; in more Methodistical phrase, the Circuit Towns, and places of the Preachers' residence. I fear the enumeration may have been somewhat tedious; but it seemed to the writer indispensable towards conveying any thing like a comprehensive view of the real and comparative hold which Methodism has taken of the county, and of the apparatus which it has at its command. It will hence be seen that it is, in reality, all but dominant. In other parts of the kingdom, we have chapels equally large, several larger, and in as close vicinity to each other: for instance, in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. But there the population is more dense, and other denominations of the Christian church divide it more largely with us. On the contrary, Methodism in most parts of Cornwall seems to have taken up the spirit of the county motto, "One and all." Here it appears like a pyramid on the open plain: in Yorkshire the pyramid may have a wider basis, its apex may rise higher, but it stands contrasted with castellated towers and lofty mountains. Methodism in the north is mightier; in the west, more imposing. Cornish Methodism, however, has generally been supposed to partake of an unusual measure of the enthusiasm attributed to the denomination at large. The frequent, though not periodical," revivals which have marked its progress, accompanied at times with strong crying and tears to Him that is able to save," have furnished assumed data for such conclusions. In point of fact, however, a stranger will meet with much less excitement in most parts of Cornwall than either in the collieries of Durham, or the clothing districts of Yorkshire. Emotions of the most sanctified character must, as human nature is constituted, be necessarily evanescent; but when they grow into principles, operating by a holy practice, we have at once their sanction and object. And perhaps in no part of England is the standard of morals higher than here. Marriage is contracted early; and much of the licentiousness so common in most of the manufacturing and many of the agricultural districts, is almost wholly unknown; and though piety is by no means general, much less hereditary, young people educated under its restraints, and accustomed to its forms of worship, share many of its collateral advantages, and when seasons of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord," are found to be a people pre-eminently prepared for the gracious visitations. 66 But, without giving any offence, it may be questioned, whether Methodism has yet put forth in Cornwall its full potency. Large congregations have been collected; spacious chapels, and but little encumbered with debt, reared; Sunday-schools almost every where established; and Circuits and Preachers of late years extensively increased. Yet few parts of the Connexion seem to require, in the same degree, a more systematized and persevering plan of personal and pastoral visitation and oversight. The Preachers in this portion of the Connexion are in labours beyond measure; and some of them, even in this part of ministerial duty, go beyond themselves. But there is in most Circuits a distressing disproportion between the work to be done, and the labourers who have to perform it. A great number of the Cornish Preachers have, upon an average, nearly one thousand members each under their pastoral care! To whom may be added as many more who need their attention quite as much, and have no other spiritual guides. These are the children of their people,-and backsliders from their own fold, many of whom are young housekeepers: but when they have preached to crowded audiences thrice on the Sunday, and administered the ordinances; and four or five times on the subsequent week-days, besides meeting societies and classes; who of them—without a prodigal waste of energy, which, in a system like ours, he has no right to expend upon a given locality, or within a limited period of time-can accomplish any thing effective in the very line where his path of most necessary usefulness is so clearly marked out? But whence this disproportion? Why is not a pastoral ministry multiplied to meet the case? The cause, I suspect, is to be found in the pecuniary economy that obtains: for, instead of the defined weekly and quarterly contributions required by the rules of our society, Cornish Methodists, from time immemorial, have been accustomed to contribute the ascertained expendi. ture of their separate Circuits only; an average amount, where there has been a large aggregation of members, of scarcely more than nominal value; and the practice has created a prejudice against the more Wesleyan mode of procedure which it may require years to wear out. The operation of the same prejudice, originating in similar circumstances, is well remembered by the writer of this paper, to have long restricted the diffusion of Methodism in his native county, Yorkshire. But where a right feeling prevails, more correct information will soon effect the rest. Much, indeed, has already been effected. Several additional Preachers have lately been called into different Circuits; and very considerable enhancements have been made in the givings to the Yearly Collection. The spirit is right, if we should even venture to opine that the practice may be slightly in error. Methodism is a common brotherhood, of the spirit of which Cornishmen manifest their full share. In Missionary liberality they are second to none; and it would be impossible to conceive how such contributions as they supply to the "The duties of the Deputation have been onerous, eleven services having been volunteered beyond what were appointed; seven of which were tendered by Mr. Newton: and that much of our success is, under God, attributable to the estimation in which that extraordinary man is held in Cornwall-as in every other place is unnecessary to be intimated. The Missionary work, however, has evidently a tenacious hold upon that part of our Connexion; and we every where understood, that it was the maxim of Cornish Methodism never to recede.' A very fine and hallowed feeling per vaded every service, and the attend. ance was overwhelming. "The improvement of the regular contributions of the District-the particulars of which were furnished to me by one of the Local Treasurers -is no less gratifying. In 1835, they were £1,976. 6s. 5d.; in 1836, £2,291. 11s. 9d., being an advance of £315. 5s. 4d.; to which must be added £300. 7s. 6d., contributed upon the visit of Dr. Bunting; a visit which, in its sacred influence, and its effects in removing unfounded prejudices, as well as its general bearings upon our great undertaking, will not soon be forgotten by the grateful and affectionate multitudes who listened to his impressive and judicious ministrations. "When all did so nobly, the particular notice of any one place may appear invidious; but St. Ives gave the most surprise to the Deputation. This very small fishing-town presented an afternoon congregation of about one thousand hearers; and the assembly in the evening-seeming to embrace the whole stirring population was only less wonder ful than their givings, amounting, on that occasion alone, to £97. "The personal kindness the Deputation received can never be expressed." I add nothing besides. A. E. FARRAR. As a small acknowledgment of the kindness shown to the writer at Hayle, he has consented to send you the substance of the sermon he preached there, for insertion in your Magazine. He could greatly have wished it had been a better sermon; but claims it as an act of justice to himself, as well as to the friends who urged its publication, and especially to Mr. F. Harvey, who respectfully conveyed this request, that the reader should keep in mind how much a sermon owes to the circumstances of its delivery. The Preacher was more than once reminded, whilst writing it, of a by some of his hearers to give them from venerable Minister, who, being desired the press a sermon preached during a storm, complacently promised compliance, on one condition: "He would furnish the sermon, and they, the thunder and lightning." EPISTOLARY REMAINS OF THE REV. ALEXANDER MATHER. (Continued from page 29.) VI. A TENDER CONSCIENCE. December 30th, 1783. Ir is one of your greatest mercies to have a tender conscience; yet even this Satan will strive to turn against you, by endeavouring to make it scrupulous in any case where he can serve the end of raising a flood of reasonings, to prevent you from enjoying God, or any of the numerous gifts, either of nature or grace, He has so kindly bestowed on you, and so far enabled you to use to his glory, while you thirst after doing it more abundantly. And this He will satisfy: only look to him. VII. THE SUPREME DESIRE TO February 10th, 1784. serve in you such a simple desire to please God, and to be approved of him. Surely this is his own work, and My desire and prayer to God for you ought to be marvellous in your eyes. is, that it may be increased day by it will be a sure preservative to that day; ; as, while it remains and grows, inestimable jewel, a tender conscience; and will be a bar between you and the spirit of the world; so be kept from being of it. that, while you are in it, you will And, does increase, this will hinder you while your substance in the world from setting your heart upon it. This, alas! is too commonly done, to the very great hurt of the owners, who, instead of so using it that they may the more enjoy God, so enjoy, or endeavour to enjoy it, as (if I may so speak) only to use God, and so lose him and themselves in it. And |